The TTC case lays bare the prejudice faced by people living in poverty and is one of many examples of how bad laws lead to bad enforcement. Whether it is a homeless man in Montreal accumulating more than $100,000 in fines or city staff using chicken manure to clear a homeless camp in British Columbia, the laws underlying these actions are largely the same

Using laws to target people living in homelessness and poverty increases displacement, pushing people into more remote locations and putting their safety at risk while decreasing their access to police protection and making it harder for service providers to find an assist people. The health impacts are clear: homelessness and poverty lead to poor health and early death. Using the law to further marginalize this group of people achieves nothing and increases the harms they already experience.

Fines and possible arrests and charges make it far more difficult for people to exit homelessness and, given people's inability to pay tickets and the failure of ticketing to deter people from continuing in these acts of basic necessity, one has to wonder what possible societal benefit is being derived here.

We invite you to join us in recognizing that we are on stolen lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. We are grateful to Indigenous Peoples for their continuous relationship with their lands and are committed to learning to work in solidarity as accomplices in shifting the colonial default.